Space Debris Streaking Toward Space Station

A 204-square-foot piece of a spent Ariane 5 rocket is expected to close within two miles of the International Space Station Sept. 4. If the high-speed flotsam gets any closer to the space station, NASA may be forced to maneuver the space station out of the way to avoid a collision.

NASA officials are closely tracking space debris from a 3-year-old European
rocket that is expected to come within two miles of the International Space
Station Sept. 4. If the 204-square-foot chunk from an Ariane 5 rocket body
comes any closer to the ISS, NASA may be forced to maneuver the space
station out of the way to avoid a collision.

If the ISS is forced to fire its thrusters to avoid the space flotsam, the
maneuver would take place after a scheduled Sept. 3 spacewalk. NASA officials stressed
the ISS and the space shuttle Discovery, which is currently docked at the space
station, are in no immediate danger.

Since the Russians successfully launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, more than 4,600
space missions have been conducted worldwide, leaving behind not only a legacy
of space exploration but also a swirling mass of debris: defunct spacecraft,
derelict launch vehicle orbital stages, intentional refuse, and the debris of
more than 200 satellite explosions and collisions.

"The space environment is not safe-it might be fairly characterized as an
environment in which everything is trying to kill you and your
spacecraft," Dr. Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at
George Washington University, told the House Subcommittee on Space and
Aeronautics in April.

The Air Force told the lawmakers it is currently tracking 19,000
objects in space: 1,300 active payloads and 7,500 pieces of space junk. Lt.
General Larry James, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for
Space, estimated that the number of active satellites will grow to 1,500 within
the next 10 years and the overall number of tracked objects could grow to
100,000 with the use of better space sensors in the U.S. Space Surveillance
Network.

"However, there will still be potentially lethal objects in space too
small to be tracked by the Space Surveillance Network," he said.